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Another, Horsell Village School in Woking, Surrey, needs to plug a £65,000 black hole and pleaded with parents to send £20 a month by standing order.

And teaching unions warn things will get worse as the Tories will demand £3billion further cuts in two years.

Kevin Courtney, of the NUT, is worried schools will soon be running on empty

NUT general secretary Kevin Courtney said: “Children need an education system that supports their learning and provides a rich and varied curriculum but schools are ­struggling to provide this with current funding.

“When the Government’s real-term cuts take effect schools will simply be running on empty. Parents cannot sit back and watch their children’s ­education harmed by this bargain ­basement approach to schooling.

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“The Government must listen to parents, MPs, heads, unions and school governors who have been lobbying to say that enough is enough.”

Association of Teachers and Lecturers general secretary Dr Mary Bousted added: “Schools are already struggling to make ends meet and ­children are already losing out.

“But underfunding means this will get much worse, since in two years’ time schools will have to make savings of more than £3billion a year.

“Unless the Government finds more money fast, today’s children will have severely limited choices at school and those from poorer families will be even further disadvantaged because their parents may struggle to contibute.”

Dr Mary Bousted also fears things will get worse much worse as a result of the underfunding (Image: Daily Mirror)

The survey of 1,200 teachers in primary and secondary schools, by the NUT and ATL, paints a worrying picture of rising class sizes, job losses and reduced spending on equipment.

And it found cuts are affecting the quality of education in England’s 21,500 schools, with 3,570 of them pleading for cash from parents. Several begging letters have been seen by the Mirror.

More than half of the teachers polled said their school now charges parents to go to concerts and sports events.

Four in 10 said their school had cut spending on special educational needs, such as extra support for deaf children.

St Michael’s Catholic Grammar School in Barnet suggested donations of £250 from each household (Image: Google)

The ATL’s annual conference in ­Liverpool today will call for an urgent review of school funding and outline the “damaging effect of cuts.” It will also be raised at the NUT’s conference in Cardiff later this week.

Two weeks ago the Government’s spending watchdog, the Commons Public Accounts Committee, attacked plans to make savings of £3billion by 2020 from education – insisting the Department for Education “does not seem to understand the pressures that schools are already under”.